Historic Seton Castle Reduced To Ashes

Curator: Extent Of Damage Too Early To Tell

A national historic landmark in Santa Fe has been reduced to stone and ash.

On Tuesday, fire tore through the Seton Castle, which is very well known to some and virtually unknown to others.

The sprawling building was home to Ernest Thompson Seton, who was a noted naturalist and co-founder of the Boy Scouts Of America.

It was under renovation, and crews had just broken for lunch Tuesday afternoon when fire destroyed the building.

By most accounts, the flames moved very quickly, collapsing parts of the third floor onto the rest of the building with minutes.

The castle was designed by Seton and built around 1930. Its rambling design made for a unique place, 45-rooms large.

The Academy For The Love Of Learning bought the castle three years ago and was renovating it to become their base of operations and a learning center.

The building is being restored in part with a grant from the federal government of $300,000.

"We'll spend some time assessing. I'm sure we'll be talking with engineers to find out what's happened to the building. The wooden parts of it are gone," said David Witt, Seton Castle curator. "As (for) the rest of it, I don't know. They've done a lot of stabilization on it in the last eight months and so maybe that saved it. It's too early to tell."

Fire crews on the scene Tuesday afternoon weren't sure where or how it started, though some of the workers believe it began in the west end of the building.